The Linkielist

Linking ideas with the world

The Linkielist

Daily Archives: August 7, 2025

Israel is reportedly storing millions of Palestinian phone calls on Microsoft servers in the Netherlands and Ireland

Posted on by

Israel has allegedly been recording and storing millions of phone calls made by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank as part of a large surveillance effort dating back to 2022, according to reporting by The Guardian, +972 Magazine and Local Call. The report suggests that the country has been shuttling these recordings to Microsoft Azure cloud servers.

Company CEO Satya Nadella allegedly okayed the effort personally after meeting with a commander from Israel’s military surveillance agency, Unit 8200. He reportedly gave the country a customized and segregated area within the Azure platform to store millions of phone calls made each day without knowledge or consent from Palestinians.

According to sources within Unit 8200, these recordings have assisted in the preparation of deadly airstrikes and helped shape military operations throughout the region. Israel has long been intercepting calls in the occupied territories, as it basically controls the entire Palestinian telecommunications infrastructure.

This new method, however, reportedly captures the conversations of a large pool of regular civilians. The mantra when building out the project was to record “a million calls an hour.” Leaked Microsoft files suggest that the lion’s share of this data is being stored in Azure facilities in the Netherlands and Ireland.

Microsoft has been facing increased scrutiny regarding its role in Israel’s 22-month offensive in Gaza. CEO Nadella was interrupted by an employee at a keynote speech in May, with the worker pleading for the executive to “show how Israeli war crimes are powered by Azure.”

[…]

Microsoft isn’t the only company that has been accused of assisting Israel in what many are calling a genocide in Gaza. A report recently found that Google employees have repeatedly worked with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel’s Defense Ministry (IDM) to expand the government’s access to AI tools.

Source: Israel is reportedly storing millions of Palestinian phone calls on Microsoft servers

Should Lyft and Uber Charge More if Your Battery Is Low? California May Soon Ban That

Posted on by

It’s late at night, and you badly need a ride. Your cellphone’s battery is dangerously low.

Should a ridehailing company such as Uber or Lyft be able to charge you more because its artificial intelligence programming thinks you’re desperate since it knows your phone is about to die?

Not if Hayward Democratic Sen. Aisha Wahab has her way.

Her Senate Bill 259 would prevent retailers from using artificial intelligence to jack up prices using the information stored on customers’ phones. That could include the phone’s battery life, whether it’s an older model, what apps are installed, what time of day it is, where its user is located and where they live.

“Our devices are being weaponized against us in order for large corporations to increase profits, and it has to stop,” Wahab told the Assembly Judiciary Committee last month.

[…]

Source: Should Lyft and Uber Charge More if Your Battery Is Low? California May Soon Ban That

Meta eavesdropped on period-tracker app’s users, SF jury rules

Posted on by

Meta lost a major privacy trial on Friday, with a jury in San Francisco ruling that the Menlo Park giant had eavesdropped on the users of the popular period-tracking app Flo. The plaintiff’s lawyers who sued Meta are calling this a “landmark” victory — the tech company contends that the jury got it all wrong.

The case goes back to 2021, when eight women sued Flo and a group of other tech companies, including Google and Facebook, now known as Meta. The stakes were extremely personal. Flo asked users about their sex lives, mental health and diets, and guided them through menstruation and pregnancy. Then, the women alleged, Flo shared pieces of that data with other companies. The claims were largely based on a 2019 Wall Street Journal story and a 2021 Federal Trade Commission investigation.

Google, Flo and the analytics company Flurry, which was also part of the lawsuit, reached settlements with the plaintiffs, as is common in class action lawsuits about tech privacy. But Meta stuck it out through the entire trial and lost.

[…]

Their complaint also pointed to Facebook’s terms for its business tools, which said the company used so-called “event data” to personalize ads and content.

In a 2022 filing, the tech giant admitted that Flo used Facebook’s kit during this period and that the app sent data connected to “App Events.” But Meta denied receiving intimate information about users’ health.

Nonetheless, the jury ruled against Meta. Along with the eavesdropping decision, the group determined that Flo’s users had a reasonable expectation they weren’t being overheard or recorded, as well as ruling that Meta didn’t have consent to eavesdrop or record. The unanimous verdict was that the massive company violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act.

The jury’s ruling could have far-reaching effects. Per a June filing about the case’s class action status, more than 3.7 million people in the United States registered for Flo between November 2016 and February 2019. Those potential claimants are expected to be updated via email and on a case website; it’s not yet clear what the remittance from the trial or settlements might be.

[…]

Source: Meta eavesdropped on period-tracker app’s users, SF jury rules

Meet Meschers, MIT’s Tool for Building Paradoxical Digital Objects

Posted on by

Meet “impossibagel,” a physically impossible bagel that mathematicians use to resolve intricate geometry problems. But impossibagel—and other “impossible objects” in mathematics—is notoriously difficult to replicate, and researchers haven’t been able to fully tap into their mathematical potential. That may no longer be a problem, thanks to a new tool.

On Monday, researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) announced “Meschers,” software capable of visualizing an intricate, 2.5-dimensional representation of impossible objects. In addition to creating aesthetically quirky objects, Meschers could eventually assist in research across geometry, thermodynamics, and even art and architecture, according to the researchers. The paper, set for publication in ACM Transactions on Graphics, will be presented at the SIGGRAPH Conference next week.

[…]

Impawssible Dogs Meschers
Rendering of the “Impawssible Dog” using Meschers, demonstrating how some lighting conditions create a stronger illusory percept than others. © Ana Dodik/MIT CSAIL/Meschers
[…]

Meschers Heart Render
Laplacian smoothing of the per-vertex 2D positions of a mescher (left), per-edge depth differences (center), or both (right). © Ana Dodik/MIT CSAIL/Meschers

Source: Meet Meschers, MIT’s Tool for Building Paradoxical Digital Objects

KLM, Air France latest major orgs to have data looted

Posted on by

European airline giants Air France and KLM say they are the latest in a string of major organizations to have their customers’ data stolen by way of a break-in at a third party org.

The airlines, which share a parent company, Air France-KLM Group, said in a joint statement that they “detected unusual activity on an external platform we use for customer service,” which led to attackers accessing customer data.

“Our IT security teams, along with the relevant external party, took immediate action to stop the unauthorized access,” the statement read. “Measures have also been implemented to prevent recurrence. Internal Air France and KLM systems were not affected.

“No sensitive data such as passwords, travel details, Flying Blue miles, passport, or credit card information was stolen.”

The airlines did not publicly specify the types of data that were stolen, but the exclusion of sensitive data suggests basic personal information was involved.

However, customer notifications circulating online noted that first and family names, along with contact details, Flying Blue numbers and tier levels, and the subject lines of service request emails were accessed.

[…]

The attack marks the latest in a string of data lapses at major organizations that also blamed a third party.

In recent weeks, luxury retailers Dior, Chanel, and Pandora all reported similar leaks at third party providers, as did Google, Qantas, and Allianz.

All of the above declined to identify the third party in question except for Google, which said this week that one of its Salesforce instances was raided.

[…]

Source: KLM, Air France latest major orgs to have data looted • The Register

It’s pretty clear that the customer service portal was looted.